


Trust

by Kantayra



Category: Liar Game
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-02
Updated: 2010-12-02
Packaged: 2017-10-13 12:04:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/137157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kantayra/pseuds/Kantayra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before the final round of the Liar Game, Nao and Akiyama investigate the LGT and learn some things about trust.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trust

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lastingdreams](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastingdreams/gifts).



“Trust.”

Nao looked up at Akiyama as the bus turned a corner. She could hear the tires cut through the puddles of rain outside, but the windows were covered – as usual – so they couldn’t see where they were going. This was the first time Akiyama had spoken since they’d boarded the bus that would take them away from the Liar Game and back to their everyday lives.

“Trust?” Nao repeated curiously.

Akiyama opened his eyes slowly from where he sat, slumped back in his seat, across the aisle from Nao. She’d honestly thought he’d been asleep. “That’s our team’s advantage. Isn’t that what you said?”

“Shouldn’t trust be the only way to defeat lies?” Nao retorted.

Akiyama snorted. “You’re still so naïve.”

“Maybe that’s not a bad thing.” Nao wouldn’t have said something that confrontational when she’d first met Akiyama, but she knew him now: that he wouldn’t take offense and would most likely take interest in her determination.

Akiyama yawned and checked his watch. “There’s a flaw in your plan.” He closed his eyes again, like that was the end of the conversation.

Nao sighed. This was typical of him: a revelation followed by complete unresponsiveness. Nao resisted the childish urge to throw something at him.

The bus slowed to a stop. They had no way of knowing if it was a light or they’d reached their destination.

Nao decided it didn’t matter, either way. “What’s the flaw?” she demanded.

She thought that, just maybe, she saw Akiyama’s lips curve into a smile for a brief second, before it was gone.

The bus began to move once more.

“All the people who learn they can trust us,” Akiyama began slowly, “are freed from the game.”

“Not all,” Nao pointed out. “Fukunaga is still—”

“Most, then,” Akiyama cut her off. “If everyone we’d freed from the Liar Game were our allies, we’d be unstoppable. As it is, every round we’re back to square one.”

“If the Liar Game’s proved anything, it’s that it only takes one round to build trust.”

“We’re breaking even,” Akiyama agreed. “But we’re not pulling ahead.”

Nao bit her lip and considered this. “You have an idea?”

“Every round, what we do with our spare time cements the alliances that allow us to survive,” Akiyama said vaguely.

Nao was used to vague statements enough by now that she followed the line of thought. “So we should use the spare time between rounds to our advantage, as well.”

Akiyama shrugged. “We’re still no closer to finding out who’s behind the Liar Game. And, in this game, information is power.”

“And,” Nao said thoughtfully, “between rounds, we can call on allies who have already escaped the game.”

“Exactly. Between rounds, we’re stronger.”

“So what do we do?”

The bus came to a halt once more, but this time the engine turned noticeably over into an idle.

“I’ll text you,” Akiyama rose from his seat and exited the bus as soon as the door was opened.

Nao got up after him, but he was already walking away into the crowd by the time she stepped out into the rain. Behind her, the bus lurched to a start again. Nao sighed and went home.

***

Two days later, Nao received a homework assignment at 3AM. Her assignment was this:

 _Create a list of everyone we’ve freed from the Liar Game so far, including real names and contact information (if you have it). Meet me Sunday at 2 at your corner café._

It was a remarkably simple assignment. Nao had made it a point to get everyone’s real name, whenever possible, and she had accumulated a dozen or so cell numbers over the course of the Liar Game, especially among those most grateful to be freed.

She sat at the café around the corner from her apartment and traced the lines of the teacup before her nervously, rereading her list, until Akiyama arrived fifteen minutes late. He was wearing sunglasses, but Nao got a glimpse of dark circles under his eyes when he sat down.

“How have you been?” Nao asked, which really was a polite way of saying, “You look like hell.”

Akiyama snorted and ordered the most ludicrously over-caffeinated item on the menu. “I keep irregular hours,” was all he said.

Nao showed Akiyama her list while they waited for his coffee to arrive. He made encouraging, then surprised, noises at how attentive she’d been to the other players.

“It’s a good start,” he said and spent the next fifteen minutes absorbed in his coffee.

Nao felt herself growing impatient. “I can make some calls. What do you think I should ask? I suppose it might be helpful to find out how the Liar Game selects contestants for the first round…”

Akiyama never took his eyes off his coffee.

“Unless selection is entirely random.” Nao frowned as she considered the possibility. “You don’t suppose they just pick names blindly from the phonebook, do you?”

Akiyama shrugged.

“Well, it never hurts to ask,” Nao concluded. “If these people all have something in common, it could tell us who’s running the Liar Game.”

Akiyama slurped at the dregs of coffee.

“So…right,” Nao finished with a sigh.

***

The next evening, Akiyama showed up at Nao’s door a little before suppertime, with no warning whatsoever. He looked alert, like he’d just woken up for the day or something. Nao was starting to worry that Akiyama was turning into a total recluse.

“Come in,” Nao stuttered in surprise. “I’m sorry the place is a bit of a mess. I didn’t know you were coming, so…” In truth, her apartment was mostly orderly. She might have vacuumed and tidied a bit if she’d known she’d have company, but Akiyama probably wouldn’t have even noticed the difference.

“I spent all last night at the university library, narrowing down the list of individuals and corporations with enough liquid assets to provide the paper money for the first round,” Akiyama sounded awake and calculating, the way he did during the tensest moments of the Liar Game.

Nao gestured for him to sit down in her living room and took the seat across from him.

“It’s not simple for even wealthy individuals to convert a hundred-million yen to cash for a month, let alone do so for dozens of contestants.” Akiyama showed Nao a list of names, each of which had notations in the margins for and against their involvement in the Liar Game. The list looked as though it had started off orderly but had grown into a tangled mess.

Nao bit her lip as she considered it. “I still don’t know why anyone would bother. When you look at it like this, running the Liar Game has to be a huge hassle.”

“Greed. Cynicism. A combination of the two. It would hardly be the first time,” Akiyama shrugged this off.

“I’m afraid I’ve only talked to a couple people so far. I don’t have anything useful to add.”

“You can come to the library with me to help fill out this list,” Akiyama said.

“After dinner, maybe?”

Akiyama blinked. “Oh, right. Dinnertime…” He checked his watch absently like it hadn’t occurred to him whether his visit would be timely or not.

Nao tried not to giggle, just a little. There were some matters where Akiyama was almost charmingly oblivious. “I was just about to cook. If you’d like to stay…?”

Akiyama blinked slowly, shrugged, and slouched back in his seat. “Sure. We can go to the library after.”

Nao had to fight down the butterflies in her chest as she cooked. In the end, though, it really wasn’t such a big deal. Akiyama ate silently, his mind obviously elsewhere, and immediately afterward he led them off to the library. Focused on business, as usual.

***

Two weeks later and after half a dozen impromptu library visits, Nao finally took the initiative and knocked on Akiyama’s door at the thoroughly respectable hour of 9AM. This resulted in a crash, some swearing, and finally Akiyama peeking out at her through the crack in the door blearily.

“More of the library services are open in the daytime, you know,” Nao brushed past Akiyama breezily. To tell the truth, pulling all-nighters with Akiyama didn’t sit well with her class schedule; it was better to go on the offensive.

“Huh?” Akiyama yawned.

“I’ve had some interesting developments from calling other contestants.” Nao studied Akiyama’s apartment. She wasn’t much surprised to find it both depressingly sparse and something of a mess at the same time.

“Huh?” Akiyama repeated.

“Have you had breakfast yet?”

“Huh?” Akiyama said a third time.

Nao finally succeeded in locating coffee in the nightmare that was Akiyama’s kitchen and rendered him sensible enough to go out for a late breakfast. Nao would have made something there, but Akiyama didn’t seem to possess anything edible. How he survived from day to day was a mystery only he knew the answer to.

Akiyama ate his breakfast like a zombie and went through two more cups of coffee before Nao dragged him away from the restaurant. He followed her blindly for almost twenty minutes before he realized that they weren’t headed for the library.

“Huh?” he said again. Three cups of coffee were, apparently, not enough to render him sentient. Nao wondered how much he caffeinated himself before Liar Game rounds, when he seemed to have infinite stamina.

“You’re going to starve to death if we don’t take action immediately,” Nao said resolutely. “We’re going grocery shopping.”

Akiyama groaned but was remarkably placid as Nao guided him down the aisles and tossed an ever-increasing number of essentials into the basket he was holding for her. In the vegetable aisle, a couple of middle school girls looked over at them and giggled, and Nao suddenly realized how much it must have looked like a _date_ and had to fight her blush for the entire rest of the trip.

They walked back to Akiyama’s apartment, side by side. Akiyama carried all the groceries without comment and watched bemusedly as Nao put his kitchen into proper order.

After that, they finally did go to the library, and Nao told him what she had learned in the private study room they commandeered.

“The day I received my invitation to the Liar Game,” Nao began while Akiyama sipped at yet another cup of coffee, “I came into contact with the police.”

Akiyama’s eyebrow rose. “You don’t seem the type.”

“Not in a bad way,” Nao hastily assured him. “I found some money someone had dropped in the subway, and I turned it in to the lost-and-found at the police box. They took my name down and everything.”

Akiyama’s eyebrow rose further. “You returned money. That you found. On the subway.”

“It was only a hundred yen.”

Akiyama blinked. “You returned _a hundred yen_. That you found. On the subway.”

Nao blushed. “It wasn’t mine to take.”

Akiyama looked like he didn’t know whether to be amused or frustrated. He eventually settled for a snicker that was probably a combination of the two.

“Oh, knock it off,” Nao huffed. “The point is that I talked to Mr. Fujisawa, and _he_ happened to give his name to a police officer to report an accident the day he received his invitation, as well.”

Akiyama’s attention focused at this. “You think the police are involved in vetting the contestants?”

“It’s possible.” Nao bit her lip. “I’ve talked to several others, though, and nothing similar happened to them.”

Akiyama considered this. “Well, I doubt even the Liar Game office could control the entire police force. Maybe they get a couple names that way, but they probably have other means of recruitment as well.”

“That would make sense.” Nao sighed. If that was the case, then it likely meant that it would be impossible to figure out how the Liar Game chose contestants.

“Do you remember the name of the officer you spoke with?”

“No.” Nao wanted to kick herself now, but it hadn’t seemed important at the time.

Akiyama grunted. “Following the trail of money seems like our best bet, then.” He handed Nao a tome of fiscal reports before opening his own volume.

They spent the entire afternoon and early evening plowing through numbers, until finally Akiyama’s fatigue overcame his caffeine intake around 8PM.

“It’s still early,” he complained with a yawn when he checked his watch.

“You’re tired because you woke up at a remotely decent hour.” Nao flipped her book shut. “Come on. Let’s check these out and eat dinner.”

Akiyama grunted but didn’t object.

***

Once Nao succeeded in hijacking their schedule, it became routine. She’d knock on Akiyama’s door before her first morning class, make him breakfast and coffee, and then go to class. By the time she was done with morning classes, Akiyama had generally managed to drag himself to the library. Akiyama worked alone until Nao finished her homework, and then they worked together until evening. Nao usually prepared dinner for them, since heaven only knew they’d already accumulated more than enough debt in the Liar Game, and she found that being frugal with their meals helped alleviate her anxieties just a bit.

Akiyama didn’t seem to mind. He didn’t seem to prefer eating Nao’s cooking, either. As usual, he didn’t seem to have any feelings about the matter whatsoever. It frustrated Nao to no end.

However, she couldn’t really complain, because now she was spending most days in Akiyama’s company. It had become habit, comfortable. It wasn’t until a few weeks into this new routine that she realized just how comfortable she’d become.

***

One Sunday morning, Nao arrived at Akiyama’s doorstep, knocked on the door, and got no response. She frowned and was about to knock again, when she noticed an envelope that was just peeking out from under the door. She bent over to pick it up and found her name written on the front.

For a moment she panicked; the letter looked too much like a good-bye letter from a tragic romance or something else equally melodramatic. Then Nao remembered that this had come from Akiyama and most certainly would not be romantic, heartbreaking, or anything else that involved even the most minimal human emotions.

She was right; it was just the key to the front door.

She opened it and took the clear invitation to wait for Akiyama inside. His place looked like it had been ransacked as usual, and the half-folded futon obviously hadn’t been slept in. With a sigh, Nao took to folding it up properly.

After that, she sat for a minute or two, before she grew bored. It seemed possible that Akiyama might have left a message telling her where he was or when he’d get back, so she checked the kitchen counter, which seemed the most obvious space.

She didn’t find a note, but the dishes in Akiyama’s sink were beginning to look suspiciously fuzzy, and Nao was willing to bet all the money in the Liar Game to date that Akiyama had no plans of washing them in the near future. She began to clean them while she waited.

When that was done and Akiyama still hadn’t returned, she took out the trash.

And then she returned the scattered books and magazines to the shelf.

By the time Akiyama finally did get back, roughly an hour later, his apartment looked almost inhabitable again. He raised an eyebrow at Nao, shrugged, and took a sip of his coffee. “I ran out,” was his only explanation for his absence.

“Your key,” Nao offered it back.

Akiyama shrugged again. “Keep it. Who knows when you might need it again?”

Nao’s eyes went wide, and she probably gaped at him in a thoroughly embarrassing manner.

Akiyama didn’t even seem to notice. He ducked his head into the fridge. “I’m out of pretty much everything again. Want to go shopping?”

Nao just nodded numbly. She couldn’t really think of a polite way to ask, “Are we dating now or not?”

***

Nao couldn’t sleep that night. She lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling and pondering her situation. She was now reasonably sure that something was happening between her and Akiyama. She was equally confident that, if matters were left to Akiyama, the two of them would continue indefinitely in this state of ill-defined association. Akiyama was very good at handling problems on a cerebral level, but whenever events wandered into emotional territory, he relied on Nao’s abilities. It was true for the Liar Game, and it was proving true in all their other interactions as well.

In short, that meant that everything was up to Nao. The problem was that, even after all this time, she was still entirely unsure of Akiyama’s feelings for her. Anything he did that _could_ be interpreted as affection or interest, could just as easily be interpreted as practical for furthering their goal of defeating the Liar Game.

From this point, Nao’s mind meandered into an odd digression: If Akiyama ever _were_ interested in her, how could she possibly know and how would he act?

It was difficult to conceive at first. Nao knew that Akiyama _had_ feelings. His sense of justice came from his mother’s death and grounded him even when he was at his most conniving. However, he never displayed those feelings openly. Nao could only intuit that they were there because she’d come to know him on so many levels.

Supposing – theoretically, of course – that Akiyama _were_ interested in her, it then followed that he wouldn’t be direct about it. He would play his cards close to his chest and manipulate events subtly in his favor. That was just how Akiyama had learned to deal with the world, and he’d had such success with his technique that he was unlikely to change it.

Unfortunately, Nao had never been good at spotting Akiyama’s end-game, and – for Akiyama’s technique to succeed – she would eventually have to ferret out his intentions. Mind-games just weren’t the way Nao’s thoughts worked, and if Akiyama operated this way, it would create an impassable divide between them.

Nao checked the clock and groaned. It was almost four in the morning. She was going to be useless in classes tomorrow, no matter what.

“So,” she sighed to herself and flopped back against her pillow, “if I were Akiyama, how would I act if I were in love?”

The first answer was obvious: Akiyama wouldn’t just dive in and confess.

He would probably want to test the waters first. He didn’t like to leave himself open, especially emotionally, and he liked to cover all contingencies. Akiyama would test for reciprocation in the most self-protective way he could and build his plan from there. He would want information and a master plan.

In short, he might do something like contrive to spend large amounts of time with the object of his affections, but with an alternate, clearly-stated purpose. Like, say, researching the Liar Game.

Nao pondered this conclusion for a while. There were merits to the theory, and there were also disadvantages to it. The most obvious flaw in her logic was that she could easily be reading what she wanted to see into Akiyama’s actions. On the other hand, he _had_ been allowing her to get unusually close of late. Akiyama wasn’t the type to indulge in emotional displays, but he was intelligent enough that he must _know_ the significance of making dinner at home together, shopping together, sharing an apartment key…

In the end, Nao didn’t know. And, supposing Akiyama’s _was_ interested, his plan wouldn’t get them anywhere. Any sort of relationship between them would have to start with openness and honesty and bravery. It would take trust.

And that, as always, was Nao’s department.

***

Nao considered her position carefully for a full week before she made her move. Her resolution didn’t waver, but she wanted to breach the matter in the appropriate way and in a way that would fit well with Akiyama’s personality quirks.

She finally spoke up in the library one day just as they were about to break for dinner.

“It seems,” Nao’s rehearsed speech flew out the window when the moment arrived, but she knew the sentiments inside and out, so that really didn’t matter in the end, “like researching won’t be able to get us any further.”

Akiyama looked up at her in surprise.

“Wouldn’t you agree?” Nao pressed. “We can generate a list of possible suspects – and we have – but without the personal element, we can’t narrow that list down. All this research has given us clues to work off, but we won’t know anything further until the Liar Game resumes.”

“Maybe,” Akiyama commented, but Nao could hear the underlying tension in the word.

“I also,” Nao had to fight to keep the teasing tone out of her voice, “think that you’ve known this from the start.”

Akiyama looked nervous at this.

“In retrospect, I should have been surprised that you hadn’t looked into the Liar Game from the outside earlier,” Nao listed off the realizations she’d come to. “And, really, I don’t see that you would need my help to look up basic financial information about potential suspects. Our list hasn’t changed markedly from the first week, and there’s no way to prove that one suspect is the culprit over the others.”

Akiyama actually squirmed a little. Nao tried not to be too amused.

“In the future,” Nao concluded with a shy smile, “if you want to spend time with me, all you have to do is ask.” She threaded her arm through Akiyama’s.

Akiyama, for the first time since Nao had met him, blushed. He looked deliberately away. “I was still strategizing,” he explained.

“Sometimes honesty works better,” Nao pointed out.

Akiyama snorted. “You really _are_ naïve.”

“I figured _you_ out, didn’t I?” Nao retorted.

Akiyama didn’t say anything to that.

“Come on.” Nao tugged on his arm. “I’ll make us dinner.”

“Sure.”

That was probably the best Akiyama could do, but Nao trusted in his feelings enough to accept it.


End file.
